Hapl plz. NZXT Vulcan cooling.

Looking for help / advice. I posted this in the NZXT Vulcan owners thread on overclock.net as well, figured I'd post here also. I bought an NZTX case after researching as it suited my needs. Here's my current equipment:

Asus Rampage II Gene Motherboard (1366 socket)
Intel core i7-920 OC'd to 3.6ghz
Corsair H50
12GB OCZ DDR3-1600
128GB OCZ Vertex 3 SSD - Boot drive
1TB WD Black secondary drive
1000 Watt Antec True Power PS
EVGA GTX 680 FTW LE 4GB
DVD Drive

I've removed the lower 3.5 drive cage and also the upper 3.5 drive cage via rivet removal. I intend to SLI down the road, so want to make sure I can slap both vid cards in there with the H50. Vid card is now nicely sitting in the upper slot with the H50 cabling where the upper 3.5 cage was, so that's all good.

My issue is temperature. In my previous case (Antec 902), my CPU was idling at 44 and maxed out around 72 with Prime95. Now, after applying new thermal paste (Arctic Silver 5), my CPU's are idling at 60 degrees! And come close to 90 on prime 95! I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Fan set up is push/pull 120 intakes at bottom front of case for the H50. 92mm out the back, and 2 x 120 shooting out the top.

I have not yet mounted the 200mm on the side (it's on order) but from what I've been reading it doesn't seem to make a huge difference, is that correct? Anyway, I seem to have negative airflow currently, at least until I get the 200mm in there, but I can't see that dropping the temps by 15 degrees.

Is arctic silver 5 crap? I applied it in the vertical line method as recommended online and on arctic's website directly too. I let the H50 spread it via pressure as well. I tried applying the thermal paste twice thinking I messed up the first time - same result the second time.

I'm considering turning the H50 fans around to blow OUT the front instead of in, but I'm not sure. If I do that, the only intake fan would be the 200mm on the side once it's mounted.

This picture "somewhat" resembles my set up - http://cdn.overclock.net/b/b9/b9a5abd6_vbattach198585.jpeg. Obviously my video card is much longer, which necessitated the removal of the upper 3.5 drive cage. Note as well, the fan out the back is a 80/92mm size on that case, so I cannot mount the H50 exhaust at the back of the case.

I suspect I might have put too much thermal paste. Could this have this kind of drastic temperature effect?

Recommendations appreciated. Tx.

NVM, I think problem is solved. I turned the push/pull fans around so they are blowing out of the front of the case and completely re-applied thermal paste. I must have had a couple of bad applications, or too much, or something - not sure. In any case. Idling at 46 now, and prime95 maxes at 80. I can live with that. Hotter than previous case was, but within acceptable temperatures. And this is before the curing period of the arctic silver 5, so should drop a few degrees more after the 200 hour burnin.

Temperatures will likely drop even more once I get that 200mm on the side.